Equipment Management System and Equipment Technical Support System

The PLAAF’s Equipment Department and its second-level departments down to the regiment level are responsible for the PLAAF’s equipment man­agement system (^^вИФФІ).117 Historically, the equipment management sys­tem dealt primarily with aircraft maintenance, while the logistics system dealt with nonaviation equipment. For example, the fourth PLAAF department was known as the Aeronautical Engineering Department (КЙІШнР) and then the Equipment Technical Department until 1998.118 In 1998, when the PLA created the General Armament Department, the PLAAF merged support for all equip­ment from birth to death into the Equipment Department. The structure of the current Equipment Department was discussed earlier. The PLAAF equipment management system also includes military representative offices assigned to regions and individual nonmilitary research institutes and factories.119

The Air Force Encyclopedia states that the primary purpose of equipment technical support is to inspect, refurbish, maintain, repair, and

improve the PLAAF’s equipment and weapons systems for all its branches and specialty units.120 These components are managed by the second-level depart­ments within the PLAAF Equipment Department’s system down to the regi­ment level. As noted above, however, some of these functions for aircraft sup­port are incorporated under the field station’s management. Officers involved in this system come from the equipment and technical support career tracks.